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As regular readers of this website know, we generally avoid covering politics or the federal government. That said, we’re beginning this column with a prediction about the federal government, which is tied closely to politics. That will be followed with some thoughts about the impact of each on state government management and policy. From all we can see in the press, notwithstanding plans of the incoming administration, it’s going to be tough to get much done. That’s attributable to a razor-thin majority margin in the House of Representatives, coupled with a new administration, many of whose members have had little experience in executing significant changes in the way the actual work of government gets done. It seems likely to us – and to others whose opinions we respect – that there’s going to be a while before big alterations are made for some months (maybe years), outside, perhaps, from a few areas that are of particular concern to the new administration. But just as we learned in eighth grade science that “nature abhors a vacuum,” many Americans want to see forward motion to address the problems that assail them. For a little while at least, it’s likely that much of that forward movement is going to be coming from the states. In the last year, we’ve been happy to report about a number of advances in programs and management at that level and anticipate that there’ll be a great many more to come. In fact, if the federal government doesn’t move forward quickly to make a mark on pressing issues – like the need to streamline government, health care, housing affordability, homelessness, public safety and so on – the pressure will be greater than ever to move forward. A fair amount of action at the state level was already taking place in executive orders from the last quarter of 2024 , which showcase some of the areas that states are likely to be tackling this year. In fact, as the federal government begins to consider ways to streamline government, in the fourth quarter of last year this area was often addressed by governors of both parties. Louisiana’s governor, for example, ordered a review aimed at efficiency improvements  with an eye to streamlining the granting of permits and licenses to help resolve environmental hazards and prepare for expansion of nuclear energy. A report on reforms was to be due to the governor by July 1, 2025. As for housing and homelessness, Virginia was just one of a number of states taking action. In fact, housing solutions there were directly tied to economic development through “Catalyzing Housing Development for Critical Workforce and Economic Development Needs with Interagency Collaboration,” an executive order signed in mid-November , which states that maintaining Virginia’s economic growth requires increased housing development and cites negative competitive factors in the pace that Virginia metro areas have created housing compared to metro areas in states that are economic competitors. And those are just the executive orders, which, though quite important, tend to get less attention than do the actions that emanate from state legislatures, and the actions there are already being felt. In early December, the National Conference of State Legislatures  took a stab at predicting a number of the areas that states are likely to address this coming year. As the organization pointed out, “A bout 137,000 bills have been introduced in state legislatures in 2024. And with every state legislature in the country, District of Columbia and territories meeting in 2025, similar numbers are expected next year.” A few of the areas that stood out on the NCSL’s List: ·         Tax reforms ·         Disaster mitigation ·         Artificial intelligence ·         Behavioral health ·         The health workforce ·         Energy ·         Transportation ·         Broadband ·         Academic performance Precisely what the states will be doing is still uncertain, and they’ll surely encounter challenges of their own in making progress. But it’s a sure bet that changes are in the air, and you can follow this website to make sure you don’t miss them. #DedicatedToStateandLocalGovernment #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StatePolicy #StateandLocalPerformance #GovernorExecutiveOrders #StateandLocalPolicyImplementation #StateEfficiency #StateTaxReform #StateArtificialIntelligenceManagementandPolicy #StateHealthManagement #StateEconomicDevelopment #StateDisasterMitigation #StateTaxReform #StateHousingManagementandPolicy #StatePublicSafetyManagementandPolicy #StateBroadbandManagementandPolicy #StateHousingAffordabilityManagementandPolicy #StateHomelessnessManagementandPolicy #StateTransportationManagementandPolicy #StateEnergyManagementandPolicy #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #NationalConferenceStateLegislatures #NCSL #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

Last week’s B&G Report included the second in a series of lists, compiled by experts, about managing performance. The first such list, compiled for us by performance management guru John Kamensky, kindly included our own book about the topic “ The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management ” (Rowman & Littlefield)   Our book party on March 5, 2020, occurred just before the pandemic shut down the country, but we continue to be proud of its contents, even though it may not have received quite the attention we had anticipated just days earlier.   When we originally wrote the book,  we were aware of a sea of writing that ballyhooed the potential of performance management to cure what ailed state and local government. And so, we’ve always thought that some of the most useful sections pointed out the many challenges, including insufficient resources; a lack of data expertise; weak internal training; counterproductive incentives; fear of adverse reaction; flaws with targets; legislative indifference and lack of sustainability.   But though we wanted to paint a full picture, we didn’t want to leave readers feeling a sense of futility, so we published a sidebar called Rx for Pitfalls. We believe that this counsel has withstood the test of time and so we’re re-printing it here: It is important to acknowledge that performance management systems are an integral part of government – like budgeting or procurement – and not just an adjunct effort.   Performance management efforts are more likely to be sustainable if they are not overly identified with an outgoing political administration.  It is better for them to be identified as a tool of the city than as “the former mayor’s thing,” says Zach Markovits, who was then director of city progress at What Works Cities and now is vice president and local practice lead of Results for America.   The Urban Institute and others strongly recommend that narrative explanations are presented side-by-side with performance measurement information or other data.  This provides the opportunity to put the numbers into context and to make sure that readers understand any exogenous factors that influence results. If numbers used in performance measurement systems are thrown wildly off by a forest fire, flood or hurricane, for example, it is important to communicate that.   Communication of performance measurement information to legislators should be kept short and to the point to increase the likelihood that it is read. Knowledge of committee schedules and study assignments are extremely helpful in determining when information may be most useful and when it will overload legislators or their staff.   Sharing experiences with individuals in other cities, counties and states who are involved in performance management efforts provides an ongoing support system and way to share ideas and experiences. The ability to gather with other people who are working in neighboring or even faraway governments and dealing with the same issues and frustrations has enormous payoffs,   Building an organized information infrastructure can help both central offices and agencies know the work that has been completed in the past that may be relevant to current efforts. Central data inventories help managers know what information from other agencies would be useful to them. Centralized easy to access websites that provide retrievable copies of government reports and evaluations make sure that past work is not lost.   Caution should be exercised when utilizing incentives as an inducement to meet performance targets. Too often, incentives whether in contracts, pay-for-performance plans or linked to increased funding, lead to gameplaying with performance results.   The beginning of a new program or policy initiative is the best time to consider the data that will be needed to analyze and evaluate how well it is doing and what changes may be needed to make it work better. Building up workforce data skills is a pressing need that can be accelerated through both internal and external resources, with train the trainer and mentor relationships helping to spread the knowledge. Coaching is also needed to keep building skills among workers without technical training.  Networks help to encourage participants to see performance management as a living breathing process that they can support through their participation in training forums, strategic conversations, and design workshops and which will break down silos, erase feelings of loneliness and fear of change and bring joy to the performance management effort.   Performance management benefits from a dash of realism in what can be accomplished with the resources available. This means avoiding over expectations and over-selling of the initiative and not under-projecting staff and resource needs.   The importance of building relationships between government and academia, with an emphasis on better communication on both sides, is already in the air. One example: A half-day forum that was focused on bringing policymakers and academics together in 2017, sponsored by APPAM and the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Some of the key messages: 1) The need for safe spaces to have discussions without the threat of publicity, 2) A more systematic way for practitioners to know what research universities are currently engaged in, 3) The importance of considering research needs at an early stage of a project rather than down the road. #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalPerformanceMangement #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalGovermentData #StateandLocalDataAnalysis #CityGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalDataGovernance #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #StateandLocalTechnologyManagement #CityPublicAdministration #CityDataManagement #CityDataAnalysis #CityTechnologyManagement #PerformanceMeasurementPitfalls #PerformanceInformedManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #StateandLocalPerformanceReporting #CityPerformanceReporting #PromisesAndPitfallsOfPerformanceInformedManagement #WorkforceDataSkill #PerformanceIncentiveCaution  #StateandLocalEvidenceBasedPractices #StrategicPlanning #GovernmentProgramEvaluation #CountyPerformanceManagement #CountyPerformanceMeasurement

In 2024, our professional life was very busy (as our colleagues, family and friends know), and so we hardly had the energy in our evenings to read as much as we’d like, or to learn to crochet, or practice the piano. Instead, we found ourselves watching streaming television programs. The three at the top of our list were past seasons of reality shows. Perhaps you might guess that the first two were Amazing Race and Survivor. But the last one was something of a surprise to us:  America’s Next Top Model. Because we have difficulty turning our minds away from work entirely, we found ourselves drawing lessons from these shows about the dynamics of state and local government workforces and the efforts they undertake. The result: We've come up with a half dozen tips derived from reality tv and how they relate to state and local government management. 1)    Be prepared for a surprise along the way.  On Amazing Race (which usually consists of teams of two traveling on a series of legs around the world) unexpected obstacles often emerge. On a long drive, a team that is ahead of others gets a flat tire or the car breaks down altogether. That’s enough to turn a leader into a laggard. With this in mind, it’s good for government project teams to always be prepared for the unexpected. 2)    Leaders can accomplish a great deal more by getting buy-in than by making pronouncements . This one is from Survivor, a show in which a bunch of people compete, usually in teams, and one member of the losing team is voted out of the game by their cohort. We’ve repeatedly seen a smart, determined individual, trying to lead the strategy for their team by announcing what the plan should be. These folks tend to be voted out of the show by teammates who are sick and tired of being lectured to, instead of being brought into the decision, 3)    Spend your time trying to improve, not to beat down the competition . On America’s Next Top Model, aspiring models live in the same place, where they squabble with one another while they’re waiting for a series of photographs and sample commercials which will determine who stays on the show. There’s almost always one model who is so attuned to beating down the rest that she stops focusing on the things she can be doing to heighten her chances of being named America’s Next Top Model. Something fairly similar can happen in an office when an individual is so intent on getting a promotion that they aren’t good team players – and typically, this doesn’t work out well. 4)    Don’t make excuses. This is a big one on America’s Next Top Model. Contestants who photograph badly in an episode, often explain that the problem was that “it was too cold on the shoot,” or “I had a headache,” and so on. We’ve talked to enough government supervisors to have learned that they don’t want to hear incessant moaning about the unfortunate circumstances or personal difficulties that led to a botched assignment. 5)    Learn from your mistakes. This one comes up in all three programs in which the contestants who are introspective and thoughtful about the reasons for failure tend to last much longer before they’re eliminated (or they win). The same thing, obviously, is true for people who work in the public sector. 6)    Take risks. On reality shows, people who try to get through by doing the same thing over and over again, tend not to stand out and they’re generally eliminated from the show (like the models who have temporary success by posing sideways, and get bounced from the show because the judges want them to finally pose face on). In the public sector, a willingness to take risks tends to lead to the biggest triumphs, as long as agency heads aren’t risk adverse, in which case risk-taking isn’t going to be happily encouraged. #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #StateandLocalGovernmentWorkforce #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #CityGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentManagement #StateGovernmentManagement #LessonsFromRealityTV #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

Thanksgiving is just a few days away and we thought this was an appropriate time to dig into some of the state and local government news we’ve covered over the last year, which we think give people reason to have hope for the future. The following are extracted – largely with verbatim passages – from articles and columns we wrote for Route Fifty, Government Finance Review, the IBM Center for the Business of Government and this website. We hope they’ll give a reason for cheer. And Happy Thanksgiving to all! From The IBM Center for the Business of Government: Historically, state and local governments have been prescriptive in their job descriptions, requiring a pre-set level of education and professional experience. But that’s changing, as a growing number of governments are dropping degree and years of experience requirements for many roles, and instead emphasizing skills . “It doesn’t matter where you go—federal, state or local government—this is what people are talking about,” says Blair Corcoran de Castillo, vice president of Opportunity@Work, a nonprofit that advocates for those in the workforce with skills built through alternative routes to a four-year college degree. For the public sector, this approach to human resources is both a reaction to a high level of state and local government vacancies and the realization that many potential employees who could contribute have found the entryway to good jobs, promotions and higher salaries needlessly blocked by a so-called paper ceiling. From Route Fifty: A Vermont solution could serve as a national model for childcare action . In May of 2023, Vermont lawmakers passed comprehensive legislation that has already shown great promise in altering the situation that Vermont families, the state’s workforce and businesses have faced. The new law increased the number of families that can receive financial assistance for childcare by increasing eligibility from 350% of the federal poverty level to 575%.  The law also provides for higher reimbursement rates for childcare businesses, with the expectation that increased funding will improve pay for hard-to-find staff.   From our website: According to the Pew Charitable Trusts and Gensler, a global architecture, design, and planning firm, there’s a more economically viable approach to office-to-residential conversions   using a design that reduces construction costs and enables low rents that are affordable for people earning well below an area’s median income. Rather than conventional apartments, the design calls for converting buildings to co-living dorm-style apartments. Each floor features private, locked “microunits” along the perimeter, with shared kitchens, bathrooms, laundry, and living rooms in the center.   From Route Fifty: Efforts to create accommodations for people with so-called apparent conditions, such as hearing, seeing and mobility issues, are far from new. But in recent years, there’s been a significant advancement made by states, counties and cities to support a huge group of potentially strong employees who have been stymied in their access to the government workforce by accommodating a variety of “non-apparent” issues , including autism, attention deficit disorders, chronic depression and more. From the website: While child abuse and neglect reports have remained relatively constant in the state of Washington, the number of children taken away from their families by the state has dropped from 9178 in 2018 to 4,971 currently. That’s a big difference and it’s the result of some dramatic changes in both policy and process.  According to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) more children are staying in their homes  because of prevention, reducing “racial disproportionality” and providing support to families. “Outcomes like this demonstrate our agency’s commitment to keeping families together and children and youth safe,” DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter said in a department media release on August 19 .   From the website: An effort in North Carolina has helped to close the gap that often exists between the multiple academic researchers in a state and the  government officials who are often addressing the same topics – just in different ways. North Carolina has set up formal ways for government departments to communicate research needs  to universities across the state.   From Government Finance Review: Across the United States and the world, the previously unfamiliar term “generative AI” has opened up a world of opportunities  for government. It’s disruptive to local government in ways that we haven’t seen before because of the pace at which change is coming,” said Ron Holifield chief executive officer of Strategic Government Resources (SGR) #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentManagement  #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #CityGovermentPerformance #StateandLocalGovernmentInnovation #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #StateandLocalGovernmentResearch #RouteFifty #IBMCenterBusinessOfGovernment #GovernmentFinanceReview #BandGWeeklyManagementSelection #BandGReport #StateandLocalManagementNews #BarrettandGreeneInc

As we approach the last several weeks of December, our plan is to take a full vacation starting on December 14, continuing through New Year’s Day. With the assumption that other performance measurement and program evaluation lovers will be looking for results-oriented inspiration over the holidays, we’re now presenting our third installment of books (and a couple of journal articles) recommended by the many government performance experts who have enthusiastically shared their favorite book suggestions with us. This list does not repeat any recommendations that were made in our previous B&G Reports, which started with, A Reader’s Guide to Government Performance , in which performance management expert John Kamensky generously shared recommendations with our readers, based on his decades of experience at the GAO, the IBM Center for the Business of Government and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. That inspired multiple other experts -- David Ammons, Maria Aristigueta, Marc Holzer, Michael Jacobson, Andrew Kleine, Aroon P. Manoharan, and Robert Shea.  to introduce their own recommendations in our Performance Reader’s Guide (Part 2) , which also included identifications of each of these individuals. In this edition, we’ve drawn from the same sources, but have also added contributions from Don Moynihan, who recently left the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University to become a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. The recommendations below start with three books with outlooks that extend beyond government. These are followed by others that are more directly targeted at the public sector, ending with a couple of non-book offerings. Enjoy – and have a pleasant holiday. Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game , W.W. Norton & Company, (2004)   Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness , Penguin Books (2009) and the more recent revision, Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge: The Final Edition , Penguin Books (2021.   Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us , Penguin (2009)   Ken Miller, Extreme Government Makeover: Increasing Our Capacity to Do More Good , Governing Management Series, 2011   David Ammons and Dale Roenigk, Tools for Decision Making: A Practical Guide for Local Government , Third Edition, Routledge (2021)     Results for America’s Evaluation Policy Guide , (a free book-length pdf)  (2024) A nton Gardner, John Pickering, Philip Harnden, and Gerald Brokaw , Building High-Performance Local Governments: Case Studies in Leadership at All Levels , (Greenleaf Book Group)   Oliver James, Asmus Les Olsen, Donald P. Moynihan, and Gregg G. Van Ryzin,  Behavioral Public Performance: How people make sense of government metrics , Cambridge University Press (2020)   The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s Managing for Results in Government   Jakob Majlund Holm, Successful Problem Solvers? Managerial Performance Information Use to Improve Low Organizational Performance , Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28 (3), 303320, open access version (2018)   #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement, #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceMeasurement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #StateandLocalGovernmentData #CityGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalDataGovernance #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #StateandLocalTechnologyManagement #CountyGovernmentPerformanceManagement #CityGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateGovernmentPerformanceManagement #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc #GovernmentAccountabilityOffice #BarrettandGreeneReadingRecommendations #PerformanceReadingRecommendations #JohnKamensky  #DavidAmmons #MariaAristigueta #MarcHolzer #MichaelJacobson #AndrewKleine #AroonManharan

We received a tremendous response a few weeks ago when we published “A Reader’s Guide to Government Performance”  by John Kamensky, a longtime leader in the performance field who we’ve known since the early 1990s when we visited him at his GAO office and he shared knowledge about performance management in New Zealand, Australia and other countries. We were happy to see that his recent recommendations sparked enthusiasm from other well-known experts in the performance field. The following new suggestions of books, reports, articles and presentations about performance management come from David Ammons, Maria Aristigueta, Marc Holzer, Michael Jacobson, Andrew Kleine, Aroon P. Manoharan and Robert Shea.   A Performance Reader’s Guide Continued:   Shelley Metzenbaum, Demetra Smith Nightingale and Batia Katz, Communicating Evidence , Urban Institute, September 22   Ken Miller, We Don’t Make Widgets: Overcoming the Myths that Keep Government from Radically Improvement , Governing Books, 2006   Theodore H. Poister, Maria P. Aristigueta and Jeremy L. Hall, Managing and Measuring Performance in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: An Integrated Approach , 2nd Edition, Jossey-Bass, 2015.   Marc Holzer (editor) and Andrew Ballard (editor) Public Productivity and Performance Handbook , 3rd Edition, 2021, plus Roadmaps for Performance   Donald Moynihan, The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform ,  Georgetown University Press, 2008. Martin O'Malley, Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Digital Age , Esri Press, 2019; Plus the helpful accompanying workbook, Smarter Government Workbook: A 14-Week Implementation Guide to Governing for Results . Brian Elms with J.B. Wogan, Peak Performance: How Denver’s Peak Academy is Saving Money, Boosting Morale and Just Maybe Changing the World. (And How You Can, Too! ) , Governing Books, 2016   John Pickering, Gerald Brokaw, and Anton Gardner, Building High-Performance Local Governments: Case Studies in Leadership at All Levels , Greenleaf Book, 2014   Kaifeng Yang and Marc Holzer, The Performance-Trust Link: Implications for Performance Measurement , Public Administration Review, January/February 2006   Also, Managing For Results in Government , an abundance of materials that focus on performance management, published by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO)     Our thanks to the following illustrious individuals who contributed to this growing reading list: David Ammons , Albert Coates Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose expertise in local performance and benchmarking is unparalleled;   Maria Aristigueta ,  inaugural dean of the University of Delaware's Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration; Marc Holzer, well-known for his performance measurement scholarship and attention to practice at Suffolk University and the Rutgers School of Public affairs and Administration, where he was founding dean; Michael Jacobson , award-winning leader on organizational measurement, monitoring, and performance management and  deputy director of Performance and Strategy in King County;   Andrew Kleine , former Baltimore budget director and national expert in municipal finance and performance management; Aroon P. Manoharan , executive director of the National Center for Public Performance at the Institute for Public Service (IPS), Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University; Robert Shea , chief executive officer of GovNavigators and former associate director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, with a longtime commitment to improve government performance. More recommendations from these and other performance management enthusiasts will follow in future weeks. And, if you have additional suggestions, please send them in!   #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement   #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement   #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit   #CityGovernmentPerformance   #CountyGovernmentPerformance   #StateandLocalPublicAdministration   #CityPublicAdmnistration   #StateandLocalProgramEvaluation   #StateandLocalEvidenceBasedPractice   #StateandLocalGovernmentExpertBookRecommendation   #StateandLocalGovernmentData   #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting   #ResultsOrientedGovernance   #AnalyzingPerformanceData   #StateandLocalPerformanceFramework   #ReaderGuideToGovernmentPerformance   #JohnKamensky  #DavidAmmons #MariaAristigueta #MarcHolzer #MichaelJacobson #AndrewKleine #AaronManoharan #RobertShea #AmericanSocietyforPublicAdministration   #ASPA   #CenterForAccountabilityandPerformance   #BarrettandGreeneInc   #BandGReport

We were involved in a meeting the other day, in which a couple of participants were talking about agile government. We hear that term with frequency these days but admit to being a bit foggy on the meaning. We thought we were the only ones, but then someone asked for a definition (which made us happy) and it turned out that there were at least a few acceptable definitions. That set us to thinking about the many words that gain currency in the public sector but are understood differently, depending on the speaker and circumstances. Some years ago, for example, when we were working on projects with the Pew Charitable Trusts, there was a huge amount of talk about “big data,” and how it could be used by the states. We got approval to do a series of interviews with smart people asking simply what “big data” meant. It turned out that in about a dozen interviews, we came up with at least four separate meanings. We couldn’t help but wonder about the potential for miscommunication when people with varying definitions worked together without knowing they were talking about different things. The list goes on. Just the other day we were having a conversation with a well-known expert in human resources, and we made mention of performance management. The conversation that followed was a little confusing until we realized that we meant the broad area of measuring and managing performance in the public sector, while he was referring specifically to the performance evaluations for employees that are commonplace in HR. This reminded us of a nightmarish story from deep in our past when a high-ranking official with the now defunct publication, Financial World, was a guest on a radio program, talking about an early effort of ours to evaluate management capacity in the cities and states. We had written in the piece that one state was weak in performance management, but in the interview the magazine’s representative complained about how badly the state was evaluating its workers.  That wasn’t what we meant and wasn’t true. A representative of the state took umbrage at the interview, and it was all quite a mess, which required a few apologies. Then there’s the confusion about what’s meant by “merit” and “merit systems” in compensation. To some, merit pay implies that employees who exceed performance goals get bigger than typical raises. But we’ve come across plenty of places in which nearly everyone gets a merit pay increase as long as they’ve done enough to avoid being fired. In fact, when we conjured up a B&G Report list of  “ Twelve Big Lies About State and Local Government , we included this one: “Merit pay is based on merit.” We don’t think these distinctions are trivial.  Words matter. As George Orwell wrote, “ if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”   #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #CityPerformaneceManagement #StateandLocalHumanResources #CityHumanResources #StateandLocalCompensationManagement #StateandLocalMeritSystem #CityMeritSystem #AgileGovernment #EmployeePerformanceEvaluation #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #PublicSectorTowerOfBabel #StateandLocalGovernmentCommunication #FnancialWorld #FinancialWorldGovernmentRanking #BandGReport

Over the years, we’ve written a great deal about ways in which government officials can improve their relationship with the press. We know there’s a lot of frustration in state and local governments about the coverage (or lack of coverage) they receive. But there’s another side to this coin: What should members of the press know in order to more effectively cover their governments? There’s lots of interesting stuff out there that doesn’t have anything to do with the upcoming election. So, based on decades we’ve spent writing about state and local management and policy, here are some ideas we’d like to share with people in the press who are covering state and local government. Their numbers are diminishing, sadly, and so we think it’s important that the remaining statehouse and city hall reporters are as close to exemplary as possible. Since most of our readers are the sources, not the reporters, we’d like to invite you to add thoughts to the following half dozen pieces of counsel: 1.     Don’t expect rapid change when new policies or practices are introduced. Articles that take governments to task for the absence of results shortly after a new policy is put into place can miss the fact that it takes time to implement almost any new policy — and if the results aren’t immediate, it doesn’t mean that it’s a failure. 2.     Social policy issues are complex and despite the publicly absolutist stance taken in political discussions, government practices and policies are rarely all bad or all good. They usually have some elements that are working well and others that cause problems. A flaw, or even a bunch of flaws, in a new policy may not signal the need for the policy to be abandoned. It’s kind of like the proverbial dike with a hole. The solution isn’t to tear down the dike, but to stick a finger in the opening. 3.     Government officials who are trained to deal with the press (actually just about anyone who is trained to deal with the press) have learned to skirt questions asked so they can answer entirely different questions of their choosing. At various times we’ve had media training, and this is exactly what we’ve been told: “Don’t worry about the questions you’re asked. Just answer the question you wanted to be asked.” We try hard not to let government officials get away with this frustrating bait and switch.   4.     Tamp down on cynicism. All journalists covering government have been lied to at various points in their careers, but in our experience — and we’ve had thousands of interviews covering every state and large city and county in the country — we’ve found that most government employees are diligent, hardworking and inclined to be as candid as they’re permitted to be. 5.     Just because a policy or new program is passed by the legislature and is signed by a governor doesn’t mean it’s actually going to happen. If a bill isn’t funded, the fact that it passed may only be symbolic. We wish more journalists would follow up on important new policies to see what’s actually happened after some legislator ballyhoos this grand accomplishment. 6.     Most ideas in government have been tried before. Just check out our slide show on transparency and you’ll see all the new ideas about budget transparency that were on exhibit in 1908. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with trying them again. “Whatever government tried before in performance management, can be tried again, with the new technologies available,” John Kamensky, emeritus senior fellow with the IBM Center for the Business of Government, told us some years ago. It’s truer than ever now. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #GovernmentPressRelations #GovernmentPressCoverage #CityPressCoverage #StateandLocalMediaRelations #StateandLocalMedia  #AdviceForJournalistsCoverningStateandLocalGovernment #GovernmentTipSheetForJournalists #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #CityGovernment #CityPublicAdministration #CityPerformance #CityGovernmentManagement #CityMediaCoverage #StateMediaCoverage #CountyMediaCoverage #StateandLocalPressRelations #StateandLocalGovernmentCommunications #BudgetTransparencyHistory #Early20thCenturyBudgetExhibits #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #StateandLocalGovernmentTransparency #BandGReport #BarrettandGreeneInc

We recently came across an online report by a local NPR station that began with a headline that stated that, “Philadelphia and Wilmington (are listed) as some of the least safe cities in the country, according to a new report.” It followed up by saying “While Wilmington ranks as one of the least safe cities, it has some of the largest number of law enforcement employees per capita.” This intrigued us and so we followed through with the original report , which had been created by WalletHub in its Safest Cities In America (2024) study. Very quickly, we were struck by the fact that we had been woefully misled by the headline, which was dramatic, and got us to explore further, but didn’t represent what the study was really about. To WalletHub’s credit, it was entirely transparent about the factors considered in determining “safety.” They went far beyond what you might expect – murders, manslaughters, rapes, thefts and so on. In fact, the research looked at a very broad definition of safety, which included things like traffic fatalities, the likelihood of earthquakes or hurricanes, and even the financial safety of residents, measured by factors like unemployment rates and the share of the population that is uninsured. Leaving aside our personal questions about whether or not such a broad swath of indicators should be mixed together to create a genuinely useful document, the point we want to make here is that, when it comes to lists of bests and worsts, the devil is in the details, but those details are often obscured when the lists are publicized by others. A few months ago, we wrote a B&G Report titled,   Why Many State and City Rankings Defy Reality , in which we complained about the many ways in which these rankings can be intentionally or unintentionally misleading. But that’s not our point in this column. The idea we want to stress is that in a day when headlines are designed to conjure up clicks, it’s more important than ever to look carefully behind the bold type. In fairness to those who want to report about the findings of a rating or a ranking, there are many instances in which the methodology can be difficult to find or decipher. Not only are the criteria used in assembling ratings and rankings of major consequence, so is the methodology used in creating them. Academic literature, by and large, is careful to explain precisely how findings were reached. But often the language used in the methodology section is so dense that comprehension may be difficult for all but those who are trained to understand and fairly utilize a scholar's work. We'd like to borrow from the famous Latin phrase "Caveat Emptor," which means, of course, "Let the buyer beware," and suggest a new one, "Caveat lector index," which Google translate tells us means "Let the list reader beware." #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalManagementRanking #StateandLocalPublicSafety #CitySafetyRanking #CitySafetyPerformance  #SafestCitiesInAmerica #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #CityGovernmentPerformance #ResidentSafetyRanking #GovernmentPressCoverage #CityPressCoverage #StateandLocalMedia #StateandLocalGovernmentCommunications #StateandLocalGovernmentPressRelations #StateandLocalHeadlines #MisleadingHeadlines #WalletHub #CityPublicAdministration #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #DedicatedtoStateandLocalGovernment #CityRankingCaution #BandGReport  #BarrettandGreeneInc

A couple of weeks ago, our B&G Report published a series of answers to the question: “What should members of the press know in order to more effectively cover their governments?" We published a post about it on LinkedIn, and received a comment from a friend, a journalist whose opinion and work we respect enormously. He wrote “Always find the effective date of a new rule or law. It may not be when you expect.” Good council, and it set us to thinking about the difficulties we confront on a regular basis hunting for the date on many of the documents we use as sources. At least with new laws, as our friend mentioned, this is findable information. Unfortunately, with reports, studies, data and more, it’s often nearly impossible to figure out when it was written. That’s a problem for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the world of state and local government is forever changing, and re-using old information and thinking that it’s current can lead to all kinds of mistakes. Just the other day we came across a powerful report published by a well-known consulting firm (though we’re not going to name any names here) and after reading it thoroughly, searching everyplace for a date of publication we nearly decided not to use it at all. Then it struck us that we could possibly find a press release about its publication. We found one and – lo! – there was the date we needed. Turned out it was way out of date. Covid-19 only amplified this issue, as nearly everything about the fiscal status of governments in the depths of the pandemic is no longer true. As a result, reports using pandemic-era based data can easily be misleading, unless the reader knows that was the time period during which they were issued and can take that into account. And now time for a confession – and a little news about this website. From its inception, we have neglected to put dates on pretty much anything – with the single exception of our B&G Weekly Management News Selection – including our B&G Reports and Guest Columns. There was really no good reason we didn’t. Now, inspired by our reflections as we decided to write this B&G Report, we’ll be making a change to that sometime in the next month or so, and will be adding dates to the most of the material we publish, in hopes that it will make it more useful to our readers (especially those who find a particular item  on Google or some other search engine, and have no idea when it was actually published).   Why aren’t dates included on all research? We can only speculate that some authors aren’t eager for their work to appear to be out of date (even when it genuinely is) and so can cultivate its use into the future, by omitting this important piece of information. Yet another somewhat scurrilous reason that’s been suggested is that some papers are published by technical associations, who make their profit by selling access to papers. The idea is that when researchers can’t tell when a paper is published, they buy it, only to discover subsequently that it’s out of date. #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentData #StateandLocalGovernmentStudy #StateandLocalGovernmentReport #StateanddLocalGovernmentManagementNews #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformanceNews #CityGovernmentStudy #CityGovernmentReport #CountyGovernmentStudy #CityGovernmentManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #CountyGovernmentReport #CountyGovernmentManagement #CountyGovernmentReport #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #BarrettandGreeneInc #BandGReport #GovernmentPressCoverage #StateandLocalMedia #CityMediaCoverage #StateMediaCoverage #CountyMediaCoverage #StateandLocalTransparency #DatingGovernmentReports #DatingConsultantReports #GovernmentReportTimeliness

Several decades ago, when we first developed a passion for performance management, we leaned upon a cadre of people who were pioneering in that work. They were all willing mentors, happy to guide us with their accumulated wisdom.   At the top of the list were Jay Fountain, then at the Governmental Accounting Standards Board; Harry Hatry, whose work with the Urban Institute and other organizations made him a giant in the field, and John Kamensky, who was then with the General Accounting Office (as the U.S. Government Accountability Office was known until 2004.   Kamensky, who is an emeritus senior fellow with the IBM Center for the Business of Government, served for eight years as deputy director of Vice President Al Gore’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government, prior to which he worked at the GAO, where he played a key role in the development and passage of the Government Performance and Results Act. As a long-time member of the American Society of Public Administration’s Center for Accountability and Performance  and currently senior fellow there, he harvests the vineyards in the world of public sector performance and produces a valuable weekly compendium of the latest news and reports in that field. We asked him to assemble a reading list for people who are either new in this discipline or who are old-timers and want to know still more. Typically, he said yes and what follows are many of his recommendations. We invite authorities in other government disciplines like budgeting or human resources to do the same. And now . . . here’s John!   Performance Frameworks:   Alnoor Ebrahim (2019). Measuring Social Change: Performance and Accountability in a Complex World . Stanford University Press.   Geert Bouckaert and John Halligan (2008). Managing Performance: International Comparisons .  New York: Routledge.   Robert Behn, (2004). Performance Leadership: 11 Better Practices That Can Ratchet Up Performance . Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government.   The Commonwealth Secretariat (2024). Towards Generally Accepted Performance Principles: Sixteen Principles for Creating Highly Effective Government . London: UK.     Measuring performance:   Harry Hatry (2006). Performance Measurement: Getting Results , 2nd Edition.  The Urban Institute Press: Washington, DC.   David Ammons (2019).   Performance Measurement for Local Government Management: Getting it Right . Melvin & Leigh.     Analyzing Performance Data:   Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa  and Thomas H. Davenport ,  (2008). Strategic Use of Analytics in Government .  Washington, DC:  IBM Center for The Business of Government.     Managing Performance:   Robert Behn (2014). The PerformanceStat Potential: A Leadership Strategy for Producing Results   (Brookings Institution, Washington, DC).   Robert Behn, (2009). What All Mayors Would Like to Know About Baltimore’s CitiStat Performance Strategy . Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government.   Melissa Wavelet, (2019). A Practitioner’s Framework for Measuring Results: Using “C-Stat” at the Colorado Department of Human Services ,  Washington, DC:   IBM Center for The Business of Government.   Harry Hatry and Elizabeth Davies (2011). A Guide to Data-Driven Performance Reviews .  Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government.       Linking Performance to Budget:   Andrew Kleine (2018). City on the Line: How Baltimore Transformed Its Budget to Beat the Great Recession and Deliver Outcomes , Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.   Lloyd Blanchard (2006).  Performance Budgeting: How NASA and SBA Link Costs and Performance .  Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government.     Results-Oriented Governance:   Rodney Scott and Ross Boyd, (2017). Interagency Performance Targets: A Case Study of New Zealand’s Results Programme     IBM Center for The Business of Government.     Program Evaluation:   Kathryn Newcomer, Harry Hatry, and Joseph Wholey (2015) Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation, 4th Edition , Jossey-Bass Publishers.   Overviews of Performance Management   Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene (2020).   The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management ,  Rowman & Littlefield.   Paul Epstein, Paul Coats, Lyle Wray, David Swain (2006), Results that Matter: Improving Communities by Engaging Citizens, Measuring Performance and Getting Thing s Done  Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons Publishers.   Christopher Wye, (2004) 2nd Ed..    Performance Management for Career Executives: A “Start Where You Are, Use What You Have ” Guide .  Washington, DC:   IBM Center for The Business of Government.   Christopher Wye, (2004).    Performance Management for Political Executives: A “Start Where You Are, Use What You Have” Guide .  Washington, DC:   IBM Center for The Business of Government.   #StateandLocalPerformanceManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalPerformanceAudit #CityGovernmentPerformance #CountyGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #CityPublicAdmnistration #StateandLocalProgramEvaluation #StateandLocalEvidenceBasedPractice #StateandLocalGovernmentExpertBookRecommendation #StateandLocalGovernmentData #StateandLocalGovernmentBudgeting #ResultsOrientedGovernance #AnalyzingPerformanceData #StateandLocalPerformanceFramework #ReaderGuideToGovernmentPerformance #JohnKamensky #IBMCenterBusiness of Government #AmericanSocietyforPublicAdministration #ASPA #CenterForAccountabilityandPerformance #BarrettandGreeneInc #BandGReport

When we were attending the most recent Southeastern Conference for Public Administration in Memphis (SECOPA), we sat in on a number of sessions in which researchers were given the opportunity to share their work. We came away with lots of notes on a yellow legal pad, one of which we underlined several times. It was a quote from one of the presenters who said: “We have lots of research that leads to no results.” As some of you know, we’ve written a book with Don Kettl to help academically trained researchers write in a way that would be understandable by decision makers who could make use of their findings. But the keys to writing well are only a small part of the picture. Elected and appointed officials have the capacity to ignore nearly anything, no matter how well written it is. This is more than just a frustration to researchers, it’s a gigantic loss to the world of public administration. We spend lots of time reading through reports and frequently come across nuggets of insights that we believe could help make improvements in nearly every public sector endeavor from human resources to budgeting to performance management to procurement and on and on. We, and others, can do our best to get attention for this kind of information, but that doesn’t mean that the decision makers have the time or the inclination to take steps toward taking advantage of great ideas. We don’t want to place the blame for the disconnect between academia and practitioners on either party. To one degree or the other they’re both at fault, with taxpayers and the people who rely on government services – and that’s pretty much everybody except for people who have gone off the grid – as the losers. Following, from our experience , are six reasons we believe that it’s difficult to close the gap between the world of research and the realm of utility. The first three are aimed at government leaders, the last three have academics in mind.   For Government Leaders: Politics trumps information. When a politician gets elected to office by advocating popular policies, there’s little likelihood that new research that indicates that they’ve been taking a misguided path will be met with great enthusiasm. We live in a world of information overload. It’s understandable that with all the elegant research being done, it’s probably impossible to get to even a fraction of it – even if there’s a support staff to do so. Academics don’t universally agree about much anything.  It’s easy to find two reports about the same topic that come to differing conclusions. So just because a glittery new piece of research advocates a particular policy, it can be difficult to follow along when there’s equally persuasive evidence to the contrary. For Academics  For professional reasons a great deal of valuable research appears primarily in academic journals, which can be an overwhelmingly expensive proposition. It’s not a rare event for us to come across a study that we’d like to share with the world, but when it’s behind a journal’s firewall, and the cost to purchase it is prohibitive, we just move along and find something else to write about. When it comes to public sector decision makers, information that’s hidden behind a firewall may not ever be utilized. There can sometimes be a tendency to do research for its own value and leave it to others to figure out what kinds of policy decisions it can lead to. Busy folks in the public sector need to know what to do with even the most compelling data, not just to be faced with charts and graphs with no actionable items addressed. As we suggest in the book, it’s important to write for the audience. Whatever new research says will be ignored by policy makers if it’s aimed only at an audience of other academics.  #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalPerformance #StateandLocalPolicyImplementation #CityGovernmenManagement #CityGovernmentPerformance #GovernmentAcademicConnection #StateandLocalInnovation #StateandLocalPublicAdministration #CityInnovation #AcademicGovernmentCommunications #AcademicJournalFirewall #SouthEasternConferenceForPublicAdministration #SECOPA #WritingForImpact #BarrettandGreeneInc #BandGReport